Imagine
by H. S. Hines
Summary: Kagome awakes after suffering a terrible accident to the worst news of her life. Can you imagine... InuKag, complete


_Disclaimer: Does anyone but me read these? Well, just in case, I don't own these characters or even this situation. _

Code: Inu/Kag  
Rating: PG  
Genre: AU, angst  
Feedback: I like the reviews and blow out the flames. So please submit the former and not the latter.

**Imagine**

"She's waking up..." Kagome opened her eyes to the sound of her mother's voice. She looked over and saw her mother, looking tired and worn, holding her brother, who was asleep in her lap. Her grandfather leaned forward and touched her arm.

"Kagome-chan, it's so good to see you open your eyes," he said.

"We've been so worried," her mother agreed, shaking Sota awake. Sota opened his eyes and smiled at his sister. Kagome blinked in confusion. Sota looked younger for some reason, while her mother looked much older.

"What happened?" she asked, realizing she was in a hospital room. She looked down and saw IVs and monitors attached to her. There was a strange feeling in her head, but she didn't know what it was.

"You took a very bad fall," her mother answered. "We were afraid you would never wake up." Kagome lifted her arm shakily and reached up to touch her head. There was something thick under her skin there and she seemed to be missing her bangs.

"How long have I been out?" she asked, returning her arm to her side. Just that small motion had exhausted her. She looked to her mother for an answer and was surprised to find her mother openly weeping into her hands. Her grandfather was rubbing her shoulders, murmuring quietly to her. Only Sota met her eyes.

"Five months," he answered.

"What?" Kagome blurted. "You aren't serious!"

"I'm sorry, sis."

"I have to go! InuYasha must have been bugging you all. Probably drove you crazy, he gets so worried." Kagome tried to sit up, but her body didn't respond.

"Who?" Sota asked.

"InuYasha," Kagome said. "You know, the guy I've been traveling with for the past year?" Sota just gave her a confused expression and she sighed. "White hair, red kimono, dog ears ring a bell?" Sota shook his head.

"It's okay, Kagome. You really took a bad fall," her mother said, having gotten a hold of herself.

"What? Is this a bad joke?" Kagome asked, fear gripping her. "I was just in the feudal era! Isn't... isn't that where I got hurt?" Her family gave her strange looks.

"No, Kagome. You were hurt in the well house at the shrine," her mother said, slowly.

"Coming out of the well? Did something follow me?" Kagome asked, trying to sit up again. This time, she managed to lean forward a little. Her mother quickly leaned forward and helped her.

"Be careful, take it slowly," her mother advised. "No, you fell into the old well," her mother said, answering her question.

"I know. That's how I go to the feudal era," she said. "Back to InuYasha."

"Who is this InuYasha?" her grandfather asked suspiciously. "That's a very strange name."

"Huh? Well, I suppose it would be, since he's a hanyo..."

"A what?" her grandfather exclaimed. "What kind of crowd are you hanging out with at school, Kagome?"

"It's just nonsense, Grandpa," Mrs. Higurashi said. "She has been in a coma for five months. Who knows what happens when you're so close to death? She dreamed the whole thing, no doubt."

"A dream?" Kagome said, panicking. "No, it couldn't have been! Look, I have the scar from where the shikkon no tama came out of my body!" She lifted her shirt, looking for the scar from Mistress Centipede. It was gone. Kagome felt herself grow very cold.

"Shikkon no tama?" her grandfather repeated. "My girl, that's just a legend. I was telling you about it the day before your accident."

"Yes, you tripped over Buyo and fell into the well, headfirst. Sota saw you and ran to get us. We almost didn't get there in time."

"No…" Kagome whispered, her eyes burning. InuYasha, Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Kirara... everyone was just a figment of her dreams? Naraku, Sesshomaru, the Band of Seven? All fake? Tears began falling in a steady stream. "InuYasha..." she whispered, her heart breaking. The entire 'dream' seemed like real memories to her. Even now, they didn't fade and she could picture him in her mind, clear as day. A sob tore from her throat and that's when Naraku walked in, wearing the white robes of a doctor.

"Naraku!" Kagome shrieked in terror.

"Kagome!" Her mother gasped. "That's not polite at all! This is Doctor Morimoto. He's been treating you for the past four months."

"It's okay, Higurashi-san," the doctor said. "We were aware that the severe trauma to her brain could cause complications if she ever awoke. She's lucky she doesn't have amnesia. A little delusion can be worked past with therapy."

"No, don't listen to him!" Kagome yelled. "He's a hanyo named Naraku! He's a monster!" A nurse came in, alerted by Kagome's cries and Kagome was horrified to see Kagura.

"Kagura!" Kagome cried out, her heart feeling like it was going to explode from fear.

"Yes?" the nurse asked, stopping what she was doing.

"Then you admit it! You are Kagura!"

"That is my name, yes," the nurse said, stepping up next to Kagome's bed. She had a needle in her hand. "Do you remember me talking to you while you were in the coma?"

"Huh?"

"I've been your personal nurse for the last two months," she said. "You have required a lot more care since the bandages came off."

"Bandages?"

"Yes," Dr. Morimoto said. "You damaged your spine in the fall, as well as breaking several bones. We had to perform extensive surgery on your vertebrae and even had to relieve pressure in your brain. That's why you are missing so much hair." Kagura held a mirror up for Kagome and the girl screamed. She was missing her bangs, all right! She was also missing most of the hair in the front of her scalp and a large line to the left side. There were horrible scars, including a thick, ropey one that she had just thought was another tube under her skin.

"Kagome, Kagome, it's not so bad!" Mrs. Higurashi said, rubbing her arm.

"It's interesting that Kagome has integrated hospital staff into her delusion," Dr. Morimoto said. "Tell me, Kagome, do you recall your friends visiting you?"

"Eri, Yuka, Ayumi and Hojo?" Mrs. Higurashi expanded.

"I... I suppose," Kagome said. "I mean, I saw them on the days I came back..."

"We're going to give you something to calm you down, Miss Higurashi," the doctor explained as Nurse Kagura injected the syringe into her IV. Kagome felt her tension begging to drain away. Before long, she was asleep.

Several days passed and Kagome was released from the hospital. She had finally come to the understanding that her memories from the past year were actually just a long, elaborate dream her brain played as she lie dying. When she got home, she walked to InuYasha's tree and touched the place she had found him pinned five hundred years before. Except that it had never happened. Still, she could see him as clear as day. She reached out, but her hand passed through him and he vanished.

She remembered him holding her hand, telling her not to be afraid, not to cry. Telling her that he would protect her as they went into the final battle against Naraku. She could still feel the touch of his hands on hers. She couldn't believe she dreamed it all.

She fell to her knees and wept. "I said I would stay with you," Kagome choked out. "InuYasha... how could I have imagined you? How could I have loved someone who isn't real? I loved you with all my heart," she whispered. "Please, come out of the well, tell me I'm stupid and take me back home," she said to the tree. "Tell me that you're real and this is the dream," she cried out.

Kagome was like a zombie over the next few weeks. Every morning, she awoke in front of the tree, even though she had no memory of walking there at night. Her mother had her see a psychiatrist, but he couldn't help her. Kagome felt certain that she was in a dream. She felt nothing anymore but the heartache that her entire world wasn't real.

Finally, one day, she couldn't take it anymore. She waited until her family was gone and slid open the doors to the old well. "The Bone Eater's well," she greeted it. Her grandfather had boarded it back up with new planks and she gripped the crowbar she had brought for this purpose. She pried the boards away and looked down into the well she had jumped in and climbed out of so many times.

"InuYasha," she said. "You're still with me. Please be waiting for me. Don't let me truly be alone." Then she prepared herself, hitching the backpack she wore into a more comfortable position. She stood at the edge, looking down into the darkness, lifted her foot and set it on the lip of the well. "I have to be with you. You know I gave all this up to be with you. You're all I want. I'm coming, InuYasha." She shifted her weight into that foot, pushing off and jumping in. She fell faster than she ever had and realized that everyone had been telling her the truth right before she hit the bottom of the well and it was all over.

Kagome opened her eyes and smiled up at InuYasha.

"Baka, where were you just now?" he asked.

"In a dream," she said, reaching out and taking his hand.

"Are you ready now?" he asked, closing his hand over hers.

"Yes, let's go," she said and followed him into forever.

**_The End. _**

_I finished this just a few minutes after InuYasha came on. Written with very heavy influence to "My Immortal" and "Taking Over Me" by Evanescence. So heavily that I almost declared this a songfic. Instead, it's dedicated to those songs, since I didn't use lyrics. Mostly to get this idea out of my head and away from the other story I was writing, as it had no place there. I had this idea of Kagome going crazy from missing InuYasha and then I thought, what if it was the other way around? So this is what came of it. _

_Japanese: _

_Shikkon no tama: Jewel of Four Souls  
hanyo: half-demon  
baka: stupid; idiot _


End file.
